2012 Research Seminars
The CLA, in conjunction with the NZ Forum of the International Forums of the School of Psychoanalysis in the Lacanian Field invites psychoanalysts and teachers of international standing to present seminars on current issues in psychoanalysis, the clinical and/or the theoretical, combining presentations and discussions. The seminars are open to all who are interested in psychoanalytic theory and practice.
1. Sexual Identity by Gustavo Restivo
8th February
From the perspective of the theory and practice of psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud postulated a radically new conception of human sexuality in his Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Freud, 1905) by stating that human sexuality couldn’t be reduced to the paradigm of a biological imperative and its variants. He postulated that the unconscious provides a sexual identity based upon the vicissitudes of the Oedipus complex.
In the 1960s Lacan stated that Freud's myths of sexuality, Oedipus and Totem and Taboo (Freud, Totem and Taboo, 1913), had to be approached within the language of contemporary logic, instead of the Aristotelian one. Lacan undermined the myth of the binarity of the sexes to allow a new way of looking and sexual relationship or, perhaps, a non-sexual-relationship. Lacan indicated that there are at least three fields where we could explore the differentiation between Man and Woman: love, libido, and the symbolic function of the father. The study of those three fields allowed psychoanalysis to postulate a fourth one: Jouissance.
Lacan, during his late years of teaching formulas (Seminar XX onwards) laid the foundations for a possible definition of a sexual identity that could be determined in terms of Jouissance; this hypothesis allowed the possibility for sexual identity to remain independent with respect to the object choice, having extensive social implications.
This presentation will explore the possibility of conceptualizing sexual identity and sexual difference that, that while acknowledging jouissance, breaks away from the dichotomy of the reference to the phallus.
Gustavo Restivo is a Clinical Psychologist, Psychotherapist and Psychoanalyst; he was the founding director of the Centre for Lacanian Analysis, he is member of the Collegio di Clinica Psicoanalitica, Roma, New Zealand Forum, Praxis-FCL in Italia.
Date: Wednesday 8 February
Time: 6.00pm to 8.00pm
Venue: AUT, St Paul St, Room WS 101.
Parking: 56 Wakefield St (cnr St Paul & Wakefield Sts)
This event is free.
